Fathom Entertainment
Project Snapshot
- Market Research
- Technical Discovery & Research
- Brand Identity
- Website UX/UI
- Web Development
- B2C E-Commerce
A New Look. A Smarter Site.
Same Big-Screen Magic.
Challenge
Fathom Entertainment isn’t a typical website. It’s distribution infrastructure for one of North America’s largest movie theater content networks. When traffic spikes hit on opening weekend, the platform needs to handle thousands of concurrent users buying theater tickets in real time. The old site couldn’t do it reliably.
+ Outdated site with poor UX and no upgrade path
Fathom’s original site was built on a legacy Laravel codebase that had done its job until it hadn’t. They needed a complete rebuild focused on UX, but the architecture was so tangled that our development team needed multiple sessions with their internal engineers just to understand what they were actually looking at. You don’t scope a project like that over coffee. It takes real time and real expertise to untangle what’s been built over the years and figure out what can move forward and what needs to stay behind.
+ The ticketing system couldn’t handle peak traffic reliably
The core of Fathom’s business is real-time ticket sales during major movie releases. Their existing ticketing layer was brittle during traffic spikes. Moving to WordPress meant solving an architectural puzzle: how do you handle thousands of concurrent transactions on a managed platform without either overtaxing the infrastructure or rebuilding the entire ticketing system? We evaluated three different approaches, each with real trade-offs around cost, complexity, and long-term maintainability. There was no perfect answer. Only informed decisions.
+ Trapped in developer dependency for routine content changes
Every simple content change required developer involvement. A new movie promotion, an updated event listing, a featured film carousel change. These weren’t technical work. They were marketing work. But they all needed a developer to implement. The bottleneck wasn’t technical complexity. It was a broken workflow that meant Fathom’s marketing team couldn’t move at the speed the movie industry demands..
Approach
We started with questions, not assumptions, and let real insight shape every move that followed.
+ The Brand Study
We tore the brand down to the studs to see what really made it tick. More than 150 loyal moviegoers and the internal stakeholders told us exactly how Fathom was seen, the good, the bad, and the outdated. It gave us a clear picture of what to protect and what to evolve.
+ Technical Discovery
Before a single pixel was designed, we mapped every technical need down to the smallest detail. Our team built a functional requirements document that covered it all, then spent weeks pressure testing third-party integrations to make sure the site would actually work, clean, fast, and rock solid.
+ Brand Messaging & Identity
We stripped the messaging back to what mattered most, clarity, consistency, and connection. Fathom was exploring a shift to Fathom Entertainment, so we tested it with their audience and internal team. The results said yes. The new name and identity hit harder and fit who they are now, bold, confident, and built for what’s next.
+ Website Design & Development
Design and development moved as one crew to bring the brand to life online. The new site is cinematic without being overproduced, built on a flexible system that lets the Fathom team move fast and stay fresh. It is sharp, intuitive, and finally feels like the brand fans already loved.
